Apple's ARKit to ease deployment of AR apps on iOS platforms

Apple at its ongoing Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2017) introduced ARKit, a new set of APIs to help developers bring Augmented Reality apps to iOS devices. While singing the praises of Pokemon Go, the company expanded on the changes made to it’s App Store, which will provide advanced augmented reality capabilities on iOS.

According to the company, ARKit supports Unreal Engine and Scenekit and will be coming to iPad and iPhone, among other iOS devices.

Before now, Apple’s software wasn’t specifically built to enable stable motion tracking that makes objects appear as actually being placed in real space, which popular third-party apps like Pokémon Go with AR capabilities require.

Apple gave an instance with improved version of Pokémon Go in which the Pokémon wouldn't float anymore.

Touted as the “largest AR platform in the world” - ARKit, will be available across the iOS ecosystem.

However, it remains unclear how Apple wants its developers to use the new AR platform, albeit the company made available demos to show off what ARKit can do, highlighting the marker-less spatial awareness that ARKit has in a tabletop gaming title featuring an airship attack on an enemy outpost.

Apple, nonetheless is playing catch-up with Google, which already has Tango augmented reality platform, though only available on Android devices.